Top German court rules disabled adults can vote in EU election

Members of European Parliament vote during a plenary session | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images

The German Constitutional Court approved an urgent motion Monday to allow disabled adults under full-time care to vote in May’s European Parliament election.

The top court earlier this year ruled unconstitutional laws that bar from voting disabled people with court-appointed caretakers supervising all of their affairs, as well as people convicted of crimes who were placed in psychiatric hospitals.

However, legislation enacted to comply with the prior ruling was not set to take effect until July — two months after the European election — and therefore German opposition parties filed an urgent motion so that people affected would be able to cast ballots in May.

Members of the ruling coalition parties in the center-left SPD and conservative CDU/CSU bloc had argued that making changes so soon before the EU vote could disrupt preparations. The federal office overseeing elections, for example, had set April 14 as the deadline for registering to vote.

Those affected by Monday’s ruling — more than 80,000 people — must therefore make a separate application to vote in the European election, according to German media.

More than 80,000 disabled people in Germany are affected by the court’s decision.

“Success for democracy!” tweeted MEP Sven Giegold, a member of the German Greens, which was one of the parties to file the urgent motion.

“It’s not about implementing something nice, it’s about implementing fundamental, constitutional rights, that people with disabilities have exactly the same rights as all other people,” Jürgen Dusel, the German government’s commissioner for people with disabilities, told public broadcaster SWR2 before the court’s decision.